This proposal describes a new postdoctoral research training effort submitted as a competing renewal for a previously funded program at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The new program is directed by Dr. Steven Hebert, who assumed the Ann and Roscoe R. Robinson Chair of Medicine, and the Directorship of the Nephrology Division in April 1997. Under Dr. Hebert's leadership, the new program has recruited a number of new faculty preceptors who offer a multi-disciplinary program to develop careers of basic or clinical research scientists addressing important issues in kidney function and disease. The goal of this program is to provide physician-scientists (M.D., or M.D./Ph.D.) and selected basic scientist (Ph.D.) trainees with an intense, high level research experience that will serve as the foundation for an independent investigative career directed toward improving the understanding of renal biology and disease. Support for three postdoctoral trainees per year is requested. The program integrates strong research opportunities in ion channel and transporter biology, vascular biology, renal development, and analysis of genetic diseases to provide a comprehensive and cohesive research environment. Clinical research opportunities in nutrition, end stage renal disease, progression of renal disease, and transplantation are coupled with training in clinical epidemiology and outcomes research. An innovative aspect of this new program is institution of formal Career Development Committees to monitor and guide the research training effort of individual trainees through objective stages of career development. This revitalized training program in renal biology and disease offers unique research training opportunities in a highly focused supervisory framework to develop future contributors of important discoveries in kidney related research.